


don't walk this way

by soulofme



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Drabble, M/M, Pre-Relationship, Red String of Fate, angsty I guess idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-23
Updated: 2018-09-23
Packaged: 2019-07-16 01:10:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,519
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16075220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/soulofme/pseuds/soulofme
Summary: The string doesn’t mean a fucking thing. It only does if you’re a naïve piece of shit that believes love is something that happens to everyone. Life’s a bitch, a cruel one at that, and it didn’t design the red string of fate with people like James in mind.He doesn’t know why it has to be Keith. Keith doesn’t want him. Keith has never ached for him. Not in the way James does, when it’s late at night and he can’t sleep because hewants.





	don't walk this way

The string between them is thin, frayed at the edges and appearing like it's seconds away from unraveling. James knows from experience that it won’t, that it'll hold on like a persistent bastard. He grinds his teeth together and rolls the menthol cigarette between his fingers.

Keith watches him, arms crossed over his chest with his perpetual scowl painted on his face. When James catches his eye, he huffs and glares off at something to his side. James lights up the cigarette and blows smoke in Keith’s direction, just to watch his nose wrinkle.

“We should talk about this,” James starts, tapping his fingers against the cool metal railing beneath his fingers. He thinks, briefly, that if he were to lean too far forward, he’d go tumbling down the side of the cliff and disappear into the murky water below.

“There’s nothing to say,” Keith mutters. “We’re being fucked with.”

James flicks the cigarette over the railing. It falls down, down, down.

He swears he can hear it splash.

“I bet you wish it was someone else,” James tries then. He’s desperate, desperate to get something more than a glare, something with more substance than a shrug.

Keith doesn’t indulge him. Probably doesn’t know how to.

He says, “Stop looking for shit, James.”

And James laughs, partly because he’s almost thrilled that Keith’s so willing to call him out. He leans further over the railing, feels the metal bite indents into the meat of his palm. The waves rock against the jagged rocks along the shore, roaring thunderously.

It’s late, so late that James feels his eyes grow heavy with exhaustion. But it’s early enough that someone out there is awake, dressing for work, brewing coffee and attempting to be productive.

“You got a death wish?”

“No,” James says, punctuating it with a snort.

Keith grips him by the collar of his shirt, yanking him back.

“Don’t do that dumb shit, then.”

“You care,” James says. He starts laughing again and Keith looks at him like he’s the scum of the earth. It makes a fire burn through his veins, something that makes him feel more alive than he ever has.

“I don’t.”

Keith’s obviously done with this, done with _James_. But he has nowhere to go, nowhere to run to. He can try, can keep going until the edges of the world begin to blur together. But he’ll never be able to escape this, escape _fate_.

Keith sits down then, resting his back against the railing. His fingers drift towards the string looped around his ankle, but he seems to think better of it and shoves his hand into his pocket instead.

“Say it like you mean it,” James taunts him. It’s all he knows how to do. He doesn’t know how to love anyone but himself. He’s an asshole who’s never had a reason to act like he isn’t fucked up in ten different ways.

“Shut up.”

“C’mon, Kogane. Just do it.”

“Shut the fuck up.”

James sits on the railing, watching Keith silently. Keith stares down the empty road, probably waiting for the flash of headlights that’ll signal a ride home. He’ll pick himself up, dust himself off, and leave James behind.

Just like always.

The string doesn’t mean a fucking thing. It only does if you’re a naïve piece of shit that believes love is something that happens to everyone. Life’s a bitch, a cruel one at that, and it didn’t design the red string of fate with people like James in mind.

He doesn’t know why it has to be Keith. Keith doesn’t want him. Keith has never ached for him. Not in the way James does, when it’s late at night and he can’t sleep because he _wants_.

Wants, wants, wants.

They never materialize into anything. They’re not meant to exist outside of dreams. That’s the cold truth that James is slowly acquainting himself with.

“ _You_ probably wish it was someone else,” Keith says then, his voice low, almost lost in the wind that howls around them. “Right?”

“What do you want me to say?”

“The truth.”

“Oh, baby,” James groans dramatically, whistling low. “I don’t know how to do that.”

Keith’s jaw clenches hard. Once. Twice.

“Try.”

“Why?”

“Because I want you to.”

James tries to act unaffected, like the words don’t settle in the dark bit of his stomach and _burn_. The lump in his throat forms suddenly, making swallowing a difficult task, and he wonders if Keith will even notice if he lies.

_He will. He always does._

“No,” he says. Simple. To the point.

Keith’s eyebrows pinch together, scowl painted heavily on his face. The hand resting casually on his knee clenches into a fist.

“Fuck you,” Keith snarls, starting to his feet.

James levels him with a cool look.

“That was my answer.”

And just like that, Keith deflates. The expression on his face is hard to read, something caught between surprise and confusion. He rakes his fingers through his unruly hair, dark eyes darting away from James every time he tries to get their gazes to meet.

“Jesus,” Keith swears. He sits back down with a muted thump.

“Not what you wanted to hear, huh?” James says. He sits down next to Keith, doesn’t wait for an invitation. Pretends he doesn’t see Keith flinch when their knees accidentally knock together.

Keith is silent. James leans his head against the railing and stares up at the sky. Blueberry and pink, like it doesn’t know what the fuck it wants.

That makes two of them, he notes with only a _slight_ tinge of bitterness.

“Do you want me?” James tries, anyway, and Keith looks at him, looks, looks, and doesn’t say a goddamn thing.

And then, “Do you want _me_?”

So James swallows down the words, tells himself they’re not as sour as he thinks they are. He feels Keith’s eyes boring holes into the sides of his skull, eager, just like he always is. Because behind those thick walls he insists on erecting, Keith is still waiting for someone to come by and give him everything he wants.

He could be that someone, James thinks. He could give Keith everything. He _would_ give Keith everything. String or not.

“Yeah,” James says, when he remembers that Keith is waiting for an answer.

He doesn’t elaborate. They aren’t any words that will help him, any words that will make Keith melt like putty in his palms. Keith’s not waiting for him. He never has been.

“You’re fucked,” Keith says, with _feeling_ , and James shuts his eyes. The sunrise is burned on the backs of his eyelids, just like Keith’s face is nine times out of ten.

“This whole thing is,” James mumbles. “Haven’t you realized that?”

Keith’s dead silent. But he’s not walking away. A good sign, if you squint.

“I don’t know what I want,” Keith sounds cautious, like the words will suddenly set off an explosion between them.

“That’s okay,” James says, trying not to be condescending but failing. “A lot of people don’t.”

“You know what you want, though.”

James’s eyes snap open. He turns to look at Keith, who meets his eye for what feels like the first time in ages.

“I only think I do.”

“Not when it comes to me,” Keith replies, sounding so sure of himself, like he’s just unveiled the deep, dark secrets of the universe.

He has. Of James’s universe, at least. He’s figured out that he’s at the center of it, that there’s nothing he’ll ever have to ask for because James will just give and give and _give_.

It’s unfair. This whole fucking thing is unfair.

“No,” James chokes out, finally, when he feels less like his world is slowly but surely crumbling down around him. “Not when it comes to you.”

Keith stretches his legs out, his pants catching on the gravel beneath them.

“You should take what you want,” Keith adds. “You never know when it’ll be gone.”

James sucks in a breath, sharp and all too quick, and searches Keith’s eye for even a hint of mirth. He doesn’t find anything. Just honesty, because Keith doesn’t _really_ know how to shut himself off completely.

“Okay,” James says, forcing his brain to work again. Keith almost smiles, the change of his expression so quick that James swears he’d imagined it.

Keith shuffles closer the tiniest bit, brushing their shoulders together. James chases after his heat, committing the feel of him to memory.

Hours later, when the sun has risen and he’s back at home, in bed and tracing the lines of light on his ceiling with his eyes, James pretends he’s falling off that cliff. He imagines the wind whipping against his cheeks and the water turning his blood to his ice.

But then, a hand circles around his ankle. It tugs, tugs until he’s back on dry land, and when he looks down at his foot there’s a loop of red string, tied tight and leading him home.

Leading him to _Keith_.

And if James smiles, unable to help himself, well…

That’s between him and fate.


End file.
